Table 1.

The chicken thigh adductor profundus free muscle flap: a step-by-step guide

Step 1: Chicken thigh is accessed through medial (inner) surface of the specimen.

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Step 2: The remnant abdominal muscle is retracted medially (a) (green) and the skin paddle inferio-laterally (b) to expose the medial thigh muscles (c, d) (red, violet) (Fig. 1).

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Step 3: Blunt dissection in the space bound by the flexor cruris medialis inferiorly (c) (red), the adductor profundus (AP) (d) (violet) superiorly and the femoro-cruralis (f) (yellow) laterally facilitate the identification of the muscular branch (e) (Fig. 2).

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Step 4: Careful dissection inferior to adductor profundus (violet) to reveal the entire course of the muscle branch (e) (Fig. 2).

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Step 5: The medial border of adductor profundus (violet) muscle is divided (Fig. 3).

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Step 6: Femoro-cruralis (f) (yellow) is divided inferio-laterally and elevated superiorly to reveal the main femoral source vessels (blue and red lines over femoral vein and artery respectively). The AP muscle (violet) is then freed by dividing its bony insertion (g) (white line) along with its septal attachment to the vastus lateralis (h) (green) superiorly (Fig. 4).

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Step 7: AP muscular pedicle is then carefully dissected towards femoral source vessels with ligation of all other branches (Fig. 5).

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Step 8: The femoral source pedicle is further dissected distally to reach approximately 5–6 cm of pedicle length (Fig. 6).

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Step 9: Distal muscular branch to the flexor cruris medialis (red) inferiorly is ligated (Fig. 5 & Fig. 6).

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Step 10: The femoral source vessels are divided around the flap’s pedicle (yellow lines) to free the AP muscle (violet) free flap (Fig. 6 insert).